Where Have all the Colts Fans Gone?

As summer turns to fall, changes are starting to be noticeable.

Nights are cooler; leaves are turning. College students are back in college; snowbirds prepare to head south. 

But this autumn, there is another noticeable group of people missing around this town and I wonder: Where Have all the Colts Fans Gone?

As a Titans fan since, well, since they became Titans, I have noticed a lack of a fandom once you pass into the Eastern Time Zone. Folks have preferred to pull for their division rival to the north.

I never really got that.

Now, let me say, I understand the whole Peyton thing (arguably the greatest player - certainly the most prominent - in University of Tennessee history). But what I never got was the almost obsessive nature of the local Indy fans.

I noticed this ferver as I had more than one fan tell me they had ALWAYS rooted for the Colts. One guy told me, once, indignantly, that he had rooted for them all his life. I grinned and said, “You mean you rooted for them even when they were in Baltimore?”

I knew I had him when he stared blankly at me for a few seconds, thinking this was a trick question. And then (wait for it…) the realization sunk in that, yes, long before they played football in a place called the Hoosier Dome, there were Baltimore Colts. And then he nodded an almost “Yeah, you got me…” look.

Another guy told me he was pulling for the Colts because he wasn’t going to jump on the Titans bandwagon. I wasn’t sure where to go with that…(maybe something like…“see a bandwagon is defined as…and all you people who are um…oh never mind!).

I’m sure they weren’t the only ‘lifelong Colts fans’ who didn’t realize that it was the Baltimore Colts who, in 1958, played the New York Giants in one of the most famous games ever - the '58 NFL Championship Game (which, arguably, put the NFL on the national map). 

As I made my way around town on a Sunday, I’d look out and see legions of royal blue and white clad folk around town, proudly displaying their Sunday team colors almost as if to celebrate that proud heritage.

But now, as the leaves prepare to turn an amber hue, so have the Sunday jerseys. The echos of cheers for Johnny Unitas are fading into the crisp cool evening breeze.

Colts blue has turned Broncos orange and I’ve decided to stop giving the Knoxville Colts fans a hard time. I do wonder, though, how many closets around town are filled with Indy gear hanging idly by just waiting to be worn.

If those former fans were listening, I might tell them about how their team was off to a 2-1 start and just manhandled last year’s Super Bowl runner-up, but I doubt they would pay attention.

They are probably still celebrating last night’s big win!

JG 

Originally posted 9/24/2013